Tuesday, January 31, 2012

When challenged by Gingrich and others about his business success, Romney always comes across as apologetic and evasive. Conservatives today lose this argument over and over, by accepting the anti-free enterprise premise that the capitalism is equivalent to greed and that socialism, by way of government-provided welfare, is somehow a more moral alternative.

What conservative, on today's political stage, can and will make the moral case for capitalism? Romney doesn't have the backbone to make the argument. Gingrich has disqualified himself from making that argument, based on his criticisms of Romney.

The answer may be Marco Rubio. Rubio makes the case for free enterprise that none of the current GOP candidates have the ability and credibility to make. From his speech at the Reagan Library:

"People are poor and people are left behind because they do not have access to the free enterprise system because something in their lives or in their community has denied them access to the free enterprise system. All over the world this truism is expressing itself every single day. Every nation on the Earth that embraces market economics and the free enterprise system is pulling millions of its people out of poverty. The free enterprise system creates prosperity, not denies it."

In the same speech Rubio makes the case that the growth of government-subidized welfare forced out private and community charity.

"... For those who met misfortune, that wasn’t our obligation to take care of them, that was the government’s job. And as government crowded out the institutions in our society that did these things traditionally, it weakened our people in a way that undermined our ability to maintain our prosperity."

"[The welfare system] has destroyed private charitable arrangements that are far more effective, far more compassionate, far more person-to-person in helping people who are really, for no fault of their own, in a disadvantaged situation.”